When you Hide and Want to Be Found
by Aliada
Summary: Tilly had many fears, and turning small was only one of them. Another was not knowing, and it was the very one that kept her awake at night


_A/N: KnightRook. A different take on the 'chess set' scene in 7x08 and what followed it._

Tilly was pretty much sure where to find what she was looking for. It's just that it didn't seem particularly happy about the possibility of being found. So it was hiding from her, too intensely in fact. Sometimes it frightened her, made her see new things, none of which were to her liking.

She'd lie awake in the dark, motionless and frozen. Trying to put the pieces together. Trying to realize what happened.

And that included a lot of things.

First off, there was a voice. Or was it _the voice_? She really hoped it wasn't but she couldn't be sure. Not _here_.

There were other places where she could be sure, plenty of them, but there was no access to any of them.

She couldn't even count them now.

Maybe Alice could, though?

Tilly listened to the beating of her heart.

Alice.

Wonderland.

It was her favorite book while growing up. It had to be. It just had to, or all other pieces would fall apart and she couldn't let that happen.

A favorite book. Tilly closed her eyes fighting the darkness that tried to make her blind and focused on the thought.

It was floating somewhere out of her reach and after a few fruitless attempts she opened her eyes again. The darkness seemed to appreciate the gesture.

She couldn't even recall the cover. Plots and characters were lost as well. It was as if she'd taken the damn pills again but instead of making her head foggy they filled it with painful clarity that turned her inability into nothing short of torture.

She breathed in and out. Darkness had yet to find her here.

 _'Why chess, detective_? _'_

 _For a fleeting moment, he looked uncertain but then he caught her glance and the doubt was gone._

 _'I'm sure you'd explain it better than me.'_

 _He really should've added 'no quip intended', if Tilly had anything to say about it. She felt like she had the right to be angry, but the problem was that she just wasn't in the mood for this. Fighting him seemed wrong somehow. As if she was wandering away from her path and risking to never find it again._

 _'Yes, I think it's because you want to spend time with me, and this is the only game you can play.'_

 _She didn't even realize_ _that_ _she was smiling until she finished the sentence. It felt right._

 _Frighteningly right, in fact._

 _His corresponding grin only convinced her of the validity_ _of that feeling._

 _'Oh you have no idea how many games I know.'_

 _Of course he would say that. Tilly cocked her head and tried to school her features into something at least remotely sane._

 _Did he want sane, though? She very much hoped not._

 _'_ _I'll be thrilled to see that.'_

 _His indignant expression robbed her of the remains of her will and she burst into giggles. No sanity for them, apparently._

 _'We could always start with chess. Seems like the safest choice.'_

 _'And the most logical one,'_ _Tilly thought. But her logic was different from the logic of others even on good days, so she refused to give voice to it. Answers could wait. For now._

Her head was still spinning, but there was some other quality to it she hasn't experienced before.

This spin still made her dizzy, still made her forget, but it also made her remember. Not the pieces - those were still scattered all over the place - but something whole, something that could never be divided.

 _'See you tomorrow then?'_

 _Yes. He would see her tomorrow, and the days after. Because there wasn't any other way. Not for them._

 _This time, voicing her thoughts seemed even less of an option, but she was quite sure that her warming face gave away a good chunk of them. She could only hope that Rogers didn't decipher the meaning behind it. But when she lifted her head, any notions of a cover_ _-_ _up seemed to magically evaporate._

 _It was just a smile, but it was suddenly, bafflingly enough. Enough to admit that no lie is possible. Enough to deny any pretense before it's formed._

 _Tilly didn't know how to name it. It didn't seem to require any name as either._

 _And Rogers… In his subtle, endearingly familiar way, Rogers seemed to agree._

Darkness lost its color for a moment and Tilly could hide again.

She could turn on the light, pretend it's morning already and be on her way out. She could even walk those grim, joyless streets. She could even imagine that she'd not be alone.

But Tilly couldn't succumb to that. She couldn't turn around the world to suit her, she knew that.

Sometimes it was difficult to remember, but it was always there, always warning and whispering in anxious, urgent voices. She knew that she had to obey.

Some said crazy people didn't have any rules. Oh she had plenty of them, too many for her liking, but they never betrayed her, never made her miserable and that was what mattered most.

Tilly sighed and touched the chess set. It was one of them, one of her rules. Playing chess was important, it kept her in check. She wondered if detective Rogers knew about that. Was it even about _knowing_? She was never overly fond of this word. It could mean so many things at once, so many tiny details….

Tilly didn't know one solid thing about Rogers, not even his full name, and yet she _knew_ him - and knowing him seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

No matter how much she had yet to forget, this part of her mind was safe, she could feel it. The longing to open the set became almost unbearable but she squeezed her eyes shut and hugged it with both her arms.

Darkness mustn't find it, mustn't find them. Tilly wasn't sure why she was so scared, but she'd learned to trust her feelings long ago. Ignoring them never ended well.

And she couldn't afford a bad ending now. Not when he was so near, not when…

Her thoughts became muddled for a moment, as if someone was pulling them in different directions and distracting her from the inevitable… conclusion? She shook her head. The pieces were still apart, so there couldn't be any conclusion yet.

She had to sleep. Nights weren't meant for thinking - that was one more rule she failed to follow. Nights were meant for hiding, and if you don't hide, it finds you and makes it so you can never hide anymore.

Tilly didn't want that. She just wanted to remember.

And today… today was so close.

Her arms opened their protective hold and the set fell on the bed with a low, confused sound.

Tilly started pulling her hair and didn't stop until it hurt. Pain wasn't enough this time, though.

And she had no idea what could be.

When the sleep finally took her, his smile was the only thing that kept her from turning small again.


End file.
